Rate of change

[Rick Mc Callister]

>Concerning the Galician language, my wife is from La Corun~a and with her
>assistance I would like to give the following input:

>1) Galician is quite distinct from Castillian.

	Very true

>2) Whether it is distinct from Portuguese is a matter of opinion. The
>Portuguese (nationalistically ?) consider it a "co-dialecto".

	And Galicians tell me that Portuguese is a dialect of Galician :>
	Which has a grain of truth in that the Portuguese literary language
began in Galician in the Middle Ages

>3) The pronunciation of Galician is very different from the standard
>Portuguese of Lisbon, but if we consider the dialects of Northern Portugal
>the distance is much less. (For example no difference between "b" and "v").

	But that depends on the dialect of Galician, right? Some are
virtually the same as northern Portuguese while others are pretty close to
bable, spoken in Asturias

> The dialects differ mainly as a result of the influence of the official
>languages. The dialects in Galicia are very much alive.

[snip]

>Subjectively, my wife
>has no problem in communicating with Northern Portuguese speaking in her
>version of Castillian, but with a friend from Lisbon they have to speak
>very slowly.

	People from Lisbon that I've met tend to swallow their vowels but I
can understand them better than the northerners. And I can understand
northern Portuguese better than Galician.

>However, this person's father is from Minho (Portuguese
>Galicia), so that helps.

>With Brazilians, it depends on the person. Some
>kinds of Brazilian seem closer to Galician.

	But I think this may be due to Spanish influence in "urban"
Galician and in southern Brazilian --as well as the million or so Galicians
in southern Brazil.

>5) Galician may sound like Castillian, but in fact its sounds including the
>lisped "s" were a local development parallel to that of Castille. (See
>"Grama'tica Portuguesa" by Pilar Va'zquez Cuesta, Ed. Gredos, Madrid,
>chapter on "El Gallego") The south of Galicia uses "seseo".

	How about intervocalic <s>, final <s> & <sC> among your wife's family?

>6) There is another phenomenon known as "geada", which is the pronunciation
>of velar "g" similar to the Spanish "j", e.g. "lujo" for "Lugo", but this
>is not considered "correct", although many other Spaniards consider it the
>very essence of Galician as they find it funny, e.g. "jato" for "gato".

	I've heard Galicians who pronounce  <j> & "soft g" [/zh/ in
Portuguese] as /sh/

>7) Galician has been recognised as an official language alongside
>Castillian, on the same level as Catalan and Basque in their respective
>areas. Like Basque, Galician had to develop a modern written standard over
>the last few decades. There is currently a debate between the Autonomous
>Government of Galicia, which has adopted a Spanish-like orthography, and
>those who would prefer a Portuguese-style orthography, e.g. Espanha, rather
>than Espan~a.

>Un sau'do carin~oso a todos da lista indo-europea. Boa tarde.

So, how does your wife pronounce this?

southern Brazilian Portuguese would be --more or less, with some local
differences, etc.- something like

/u~ saudu c at riNozu a toduz da lishta indu-eurupe@ bO@ tahji/

I've also heard /lIshta/ as well as /lista/
and /taRji/ as well as /taRdi/ [R = velar]